My first experience in a tow truck was on a family trip to Disneyland and back. We were about 40 miles south of Bakersfield when the tranny went out in our '72 Skylark. My parents had AAA, and we waited 4 hours for a tow truck. Fortunately, we were on our way home from Disneyland. Myself, my two brothers, and my parents all squeezed into the cab with the tow truck driver, in 100+ degrees, no A/C, and drove the 40 miles to Bakersfield. Not fun. The driver was nice, however. I remember him taking us to a motel after we dropped the car off at a tranny shop, and we got 2 days in the pool while the car was being fixed.

3 adults and 3 kids (ages 10, 11, and 12) in the truck. Can we beat that?

Years later, I was working swing shift and got a police rotation call on US 26 westbound out of Portland. There is a steep climb leaving the downtown area, through a forested area, and many cars conk out on this hill. This night, an old mini-van had lost its clutch on a bend in the road where the emergency lane was not even wide enough for a single car.

The family in the van had just flown in from Disneyworld, Orlando to Portland. It was almost midnight, dead of summer, very hot and muggy. They were extremely tired. The father wanted the van towed to his mechanic about 10 miles away, and they lived about 10 miles west of where they had broken down, just off the highway.

A family of 7, with 5 kids, all teenagers.

Yes, 7 people, 5 teenagers. The youngest was autistic.

While the police blocked the lane for the hookup, I told the father we would have to call a cab for most of them, as there were only 3 seat belts in the truck. The danger of the area made it necessary to get them off the highway. There was an exit just about a half-mile up the road. He asked if some of them could ride in the towed vehicle. I knew that wouldn't fly, especially if some of them were teenagers. There was only one time I ever let someone ride in a towed vehicle, a man who was extremely inebriated, and he thought he was going to be sick. I made him sit in the back seat.

I had to get these people off the freeway. A cab wasn't even going to respond to this location. So I told them all to pile into the cab of the tow truck, and we'd get off the freeway.

Hard to say who was sitting on whom, but at least two people were facing to the rear, basically sitting on the dashboard. The police officer immediately zoomed past me, on his way to another call, and I was about to take the exit when I asked how everyone was doing. They were all laughing about the situation, having a great time. I asked the father again where they lived. I thought about it a moment, and then I told them we were just going to go for it.

This little episode could certainly have put a damper on the end of their trip, but I think it might have ended up being the exclamation point. We all laughed and yelled and jostled and I think maybe a few punches were thrown, but hey, we're talking 5 teenagers who have been on a plane for 7 hours and probably awake for at least 15.

They all piled out at their home, unloaded the luggage from the van, and I told the father that I could get his van dropped off at the mechanic without him, and told him to call it a night. They were all happy to be home, and I got two very sincere thank-yous from the parents.

I have crossed paths with animals occasionally in the course of my work. I’ve towed cars with dogs inside, especially while doing impounds, although our local animal control office sometimes claimed that it was illegal. They sometimes wanted to come out and remove the animal first, for the animal's safety. I say sometimes, because late at night they didn't seemed very concerned about it. This is problematic, of course, because dogs don't like to be removed from anything, and cars are often locked. Unlocking a car with a violent dog inside is unnerving. Apparently it can be dangerous to tow a vehicle with a dog inside, however, because one vehicle owner sued the company I worked for, claiming that the dog fell in its cage and broke a rib while I was towing the vehicle. I guess maybe the dog had a balance problem, because I was driving slower than the vehicle would have been moving under its own power had the owner been driving it. Strange.

Cats are not often left in vehicles. I guess we can be without our cats long enough to drive to the health club or the grocery store. I guess cats can be trusted to be left at home. I guess cats are smart enough to not want to go anywhere in a car. One company I drove for towed abandoned vehicles for the city, which led me to an interesting episode with a cat (I know what you're thinking, and no, it wasn't a dead cat). The vehicle in question was one of those small Toyota "motor homes" from the mid-70s. Some abandoned vehicles are truly abandoned. Some are actually someone's home. That was the case with this one. Whoever lived in it wasn't "home" when I arrived. I was happily working away, hooking up to the vehicle, making sure there wasn't anything loose that might fall off--typical abandoned vehicle procedure--when a local citizen walked by and said, "I think there's a cat in there. I just saw it in the window."

I groaned. A cat in the window is enough to prolong a tow considerably. The thing is, if this person wouldn't have happened by, I would have just towed the vehicle away. It would have sat in our impound lot for a month or so and been sold. As for the cat, who knows? I might have noticed it at some point and fished it out. Someone at the impound lot might have noticed it at some point and adopted it. But now I knew about it, so I had to do something about it. I couldn't pretend I didn't know it was there.

I called Animal Control, and they said they would come right out and get the cat. I waited about an hour, and then they called back and said they would meet me at the impound lot, so I headed across town, cat in tow. Animal Control was waiting for me when I got there, so I unhooked the vehicle. The Animal Control Technician was a... how shall I say it... burly woman. The rear door of the "motor home" was locked and I didn't know how to open it. The cab doors were open, and she tried climbing in through the cab to the sleeping quarters, all the time calling "here kitty, kitty." She couldn't make it in all the way. Finally she asked me if I would go in and find the cat. I don't know if you've ever lived in a car, or if you've ever been in a car that someone lives in, but there can be an odor. There was an odor in this vehicle. I don't care to describe it. And it's not like you can climb in between the seats of a Toyota motor home through the curtains to the sleeping quarters and fish around for a cat without getting some of the odor on your clothes. So I'm in there for about 5 minutes, which is about 4 minutes longer than I can hold my breath, rummaging around through clothing and blankets and old magazines, and I hear the Animal Control lady say, "He's out here." Somehow the cat got past me and wandered out and hopped into her arms. It was a kitten.

We have cats at our house, and we always have. I wouldn't say I'm a cat lover, but this little episode at work is the tip of the iceberg as far as what I've gone through to take care of them. Cats owe me big time. Somehow I don't think I'll be able to collect on that debt.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely, Nick Kemper

www.TowPartsNow.com

This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.